Chapter 7 - THE GHOSTS OF THE COMMISSION
Forty-eight hours after the Red Hook massacre, the city of New York held its breath.
The Sullivan Syndicate was effectively decapitated. With Jimmy Sullivan dead, old man Sullivan suffering a massive stroke upon hearing the news, and their financial accounts wiped clean by the Omega-7 virus, the remaining capos were in full retreat.
However, the balance of power had been violently disrupted.
The Commission—the governing council of the remaining Italian-American crime families—summoned Arthur Sterling to an emergency conclave at an estate in Oyster Bay. The charge: initiating an unauthorized war and causing catastrophic public exposure.
Arthur walked into the grand library of the Oyster Bay manor on Sunday evening.
He wore a bespoke navy three-piece suit cut precisely to conceal the thick medical bandages wrapped around his ribs. His step was deliberate, his posture regal, showing not the slightest hint of the agony radiating through his healing torso.
Walking half a step behind him was Charlotte.
She was dressed in an elegant, high-necked emerald velvet dress, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders, her chin held high. The bruise on her cheek had faded to a faint shadow, hidden completely beneath pristine cosmetics. On her right wrist sat an antique diamond-encrusted bracelet—an heirloom of the Sterling family given to her that very morning.
Seated around the massive oval table were four elderly Dons, their faces dark with suspicion and anger. At the head sat Don Carmine Falcone, an eighty-year-old patriarch who had governed the Five Families since the 1980s.
“Arthur,” Falcone wheezed, his ancient hands resting on a silver-tipped walking stick. “You bring chaos to our streets. Federal agents are swarming Brooklyn. Jimmy Sullivan is dead. And you have the audacity to bring a woman to a Commission tribunal?”
Arthur did not take a seat. He stood at the foot of the table, resting his hands on the polished mahogany, his cold gaze sweeping across the four bosses.
“I didn't bring a woman to the tribunal, Carmine,” Arthur spoke, his voice cutting through the tense air like a razor. “I brought the next Donna of the Sterling family.”
A collective intake of breath echoed around the table.
Falcone’s eyes narrowed sharply, shifting from Arthur to Charlotte. “She was a domestic worker. An outsider whose father was a degenerate gambler indebted to the Sullivans. You break two centuries of tradition for a maid?”
Charlotte stepped forward before Arthur could answer. Her voice was calm, clear, and utterly devoid of fear.
“I am the woman who pulled two bullets out of your nephew’s chest when he was shot in 2024, Don Falcone,” Charlotte said, looking the old mob boss directly in the eye. “I worked the trauma shift at Bellevue when your family’s soldiers were brought in under false names. I kept my mouth shut to the feds then, and I saved Arthur Sterling’s life two nights ago.”
She placed both hands on the table, leaning in slightly, radiating an unshakeable strength that stunned the old men into silence.
“The Sullivans didn't fall because of tradition,” Charlotte continued with lethal precision. “They fell because they extorted working families, peddled poison to school children, and broke every code this Commission was founded upon. Arthur didn't start a war. He cleaned your house for you.”
Falcone stared at her for a long, agonizing minute. The silence in the room was heavy enough to crush bone.
Slowly, the old Don’s lips curved into a faint, dry chuckle. He tapped his silver cane against the parquet floor twice.
“She has more iron in her spine than all of you put together,” Falcone muttered to the other bosses. He looked back up at Arthur. “The Sullivan territories in Queens and Brooklyn are formally ceded to the Sterling family. The war is concluded. But see to it that the feds are quieted, Arthur.”
“They already are,” Arthur replied smoothly. “Lucian delivered three truckloads of Sullivan’s illegal narcotics to the DEA office this morning, anonymously tagged. The feds have their victory. The streets are clean.”
May you like
Falcone nodded slowly, raising his withered hand in dismissal. “Go home, Arthur. And take your Donna with you.”
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